Poland Roads Still Unsafe Despite Improvement

Poland’s road safety improved significantly last year as the government clamped down on speeding and opened new routes, but the country’s road-mortality rates remain among the highest in Europe, cabinet officials said Wednesday.

More than 3,500 people were killed in road accidents in Poland last year, a drop of more than 15% from 2011, a government report said. Still, the rate is twice as high as the European Union average, with the road network dilapidated and highway construction facing months, and in some cases years, of delay.

All of Poland’s planned highways still have big sections missing, despite initial plans to complete the upgrades before last year’s UEFA Euro 2012 soccer championships. In the south, near the Czech Republic, the north-south A1 highway disappears for a few kilometers, then reappears, only to disappear again after less than 80 kilometers.

The A4 highway from Germany to Ukraine across southern Poland is less fragmented, but its eastern-most part is missing. Similarly, the A2 highway, which is supposed to end at the border with Belarus, instead ends in Warsaw.

A calendar for 2012 published by Poland’s roads authority, GDDKiA, showed two maps–on the first page, a fragmented network with roads under construction; on the last, a finished network, which the agency was certain to get done before the end of last year. Those plans didn’t come to fruition after builders went bankrupt or left construction sites due to disagreements with GDDKiA over prices and payments.

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